The material in this collection was donated to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society on April 15, 1991
by Maryellen Sullivan Hanley, executor of the Louis Sullivan estate. The material was collected by Sullivan over the course
of his life, and, as an active member of the GLHS, it was his expressed wish that his papers be turned over to the Society
upon his death.

Access

Collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

Copyright to unpublished manuscript materials has been transferred to the Gay and Lesbian
Historical Society of Northern California.

Louis Graydon Sullivan, a female-to-male transsexual gay man, was born Sheila Jean Sullivan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June
16, 1951, the daughter of John Eugene Sullivan, who owned a small hauling and moving company, and Nancy Louise Sullivan, a
homemaker and sales clerk in a stationary store. Sullivan was the third child of six: Kathleen Marie (1948), John Eugene,
Jr. (1949), Bridgit Therese (1953), Maryellen (1955), and Patrick Rory (1957). Sullivan grew up in an emotionally close-knit
Catholic family in suburban Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, in modest economic circumstances. Extremely religious as a child, Sullivan
attended Catholic primary and secondary schools, where he compiled an above-average academic record. Following high school
graduation in 1970, Sullivan began working as a secretary in the Slavic Languages Department of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Sullivan's intense, life-long, but rather unfocussed concern with male gender identity and male same-sex relationships began
to take on greater definition in the early 1970s. Sullivan recalled that as a child he had always enjoyed "playing boys" and
realized even then that it "meant more to me than it did to the other kids." By his early teens, Sullivan's diaries, poems
and short stories reflected an interest in male homosexuality and questions about gender identity. At age seventeen, Sullivan
began a long-term relationship with a self-described "feminine" male lover, and play with gender roles figured in the relationship
from the beginning. Both Sullivan and his companion were attracted to the gay liberation movement, and to the gender-bending
aesthetic then evident in much of popular culture.

By 1973, Sullivan identified as a "female transvestite" and began a career of transgender community activism with the publication
of "A Transvestite Answers a Feminist," an article which appeared in the Gay People's Union [GPU] News. Another article, "Looking
Towards Transvestite Liberation," published the next year in the same periodical and widely reprinted in the gay and lesbian
press, remains a landmark article for its early investigation of the question of gender identity in homosexual culture. Sullivan
continued to contribute articles and reviews to the GPU News through 1980, and donated valuable type setting and copy editing
services as well.

Sullivan identified as a female-to-male transsexual by 1975, when he moved to San Francisco and found work as a secretary
for the Wilson Sporting Goods Company. Although still employed as a female, Sullivan spent approximately 75% of his time cross-dressed
and living as a gay man. In 1976 Sullivan began seeking sex-reassignment surgery, which was routinely denied him on the basis
of his openly declared homosexual orientation. Female-to-gay male transsexuality was not recognized by the medical/psychotherapeutic
establishment as a legitimate form of gender dysphoria at that time. As a result of his own frustrations, Sullivan became
involved in an eventually successful campaign to remove homosexual orientation from the list of contraindications for sex-reassignment.
He pioneered methods of obtaining peer-support, professional counselling, endocrinological services and reconstructive surgery
outside the institution of the gender dysphoria clinics, and disseminated this information at the grass-roots level through
his booklet
Information for the Female to Male Cross-Dresser and Transsexual, which is now in its third edition and is still the only practical guide for FTMs. As a consequence of his efforts, Sullivan
became one of the founders of the female-to-male transsexual community, and is responsible to a significant degree for the
rapid growth of the FTM population during the late 1980s.

Sullivan began taking testosterone in 1979, at which time he also became a volunteer at the Janus Information Facility (now
J2CP), a gender dysphoria clearinghouse and referral service in San Francisco. He also became involved in Golden Gate Girls/Guys,
one of the first social/educational transgender organizations to offer support to FTM transsexuals. In 1980 he underwent a
double mastectomy and began living full time as a gay man. Sullivan also changed jobs at this time, becoming an associate
engineering technician at the Atlantic-Ritchfield Company, so that coworkers would have no knowledge of his previous female
life history. That same year he published the first edition of his
Information for the FTM. Throughout the decade, Sullivan continued to write about female-to-male issues in the gay and transgender press, and became
a popular public speaker on the topic in the San Francisco Bay area. He became involved in the Gay and Lesbian Historical
Society, whose newsletter he helped edit and publish. In 1984 Sullivan started his own typesetting and word-processing business.
He also began work on a biography of Jack B. Garland, a female who lived as a man for forty years at the turn of the century.
The book was published to favorable reviews by Alyson Press in 1990.

In 1986, Sullivan finally obtained genital reconstruction surgery; he also organized FTM, the first peer-support group devoted
entirely to female-to-male individuals. Later that year Sullivan was diagnosed with AIDS. In his last years Sullivan devoted
himself to work on behalf of FTMs, as well as the broader transgender and homosexual communities. He died of an AIDS-related
illness on March 6, 1991, at the age of 39.

Scope and Content

Housed at the
James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center of the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Sullivan's papers include photographs as well as extensive diaries,
short stories, poems, essays, and correspondence that fully document--at an extraordinarily intimate level--his transition
from heterosexual female to gay man during the period 1961-1991. These writings and the records of his other activities between
1973 and 1991 are invaluable foundational documents for any history of the FTM community, and are important primary sources
for any study of transsexuality, but particularly of homosexually identified transsexuals. The collection includes versions
of all of his published works, including notes, drafts, and related correspondence. The collection also includes research
files on gender, transsexuality, cross-dressing, and sex-reassignment techniques. Sullivan compiled extensive clippings files
from newspapers and magazines during the 1970s and 1980s, which are roughly organized by subject matter and date. He also
collected photostatic copies of rare and obscure historical accounts of transgender practices, as well as scientific and academic
works on transvestism, transsexuality, and gender dysphoria, dating from the 1950s through 1989. Some of this material was
indexed by Sullivan in a card file. The research files also contain print-outs of exhaustive on-line bibliographic database
subject searches on transgender-related topics through 1986. This portion of the collection also contains other miscellaneous
material gathered by Sullivan that would be of interest to archival users concerned primarily with transgender history.

Biographical Material. Contains
curriculum vitae, obituaries, tributes, testimonials, memorial service emphemera, as well as three lengthier documents notable for their biographical
content: "Sullivan's Travels," an autobiographical article that appeared in
The Advocate; a social-scientific case study of Sullivan published by a gender-dysphoria specialist, and an intake questionnaire completed
by Sullivan for the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Progam in 1976.

Photographs (c.1960-1990). Mostly candid snapshots of Sheila/Lou, c. 1965-1990. The series also includes school portraits of childhood friends, Sullivan
family portraits, snapshots of Sullivan's friends and lovers in Milwaukee and San Francisco, and some historical photographs
of female-to-male cross-dressers. Of particular interest is the photo-documentation of Sullivan's physical transition through
hormonal therapy, mastectomy, and genitoplasty.

A framed, hand-tinted photograph of three women dressed as men was removed and stored with other works of graphic art in the
GLHS Archives.

Diaries and Journals (1961-1991). Ten-yer-old Sheila began keeping a fairly regular diary in 1961, a practice that Lou continued until shortly before his death
in 1991. These diaries present a detailed personal record of gender identity formation, transsexual transition, coming out
as homosexual, the gay liberation movement in the upper Midwest, late-1960s and early 1970s counterculture, life in the gay
male and transgender communites of the San Francisco Bay area between 1975 and 1991, the establishment of an international
FTM transsexual community, and coping with AIDS. Material from 1961-1974 has been transcribed in typescript form. This series
also contains typescript excerpts from the diaries c. 1966-67, pertaining to the "Velvet Whip," and photostatic reproductions
of newspaper clippings inserted into Sullivan's diaries c. 1967. Sullivan kept a separate journal of his experiences with
genitoplasty, 1986-87.

Personal Writings (1964-c.1974). Several pieces of short fiction, poetry, and essays, much of which documents Sullivan's early preoccupation with gender identity,
gay male sexuality, and sadomasochistic fantasy. The series contains material related to an adolescent infatuation with the
Beatles, especially Paul McCartney. Some of the other material was apparently written as high school composition assignments,
and is notable for its well developed social and political views. Of particular interest is a folder of sex fantasies.

AIDS-Related Materials (1986-1991). Sullivan's medication schedules, hospitalization records, and material related to his participation as a human subject in
scientific studies of AIDS.

Medical Correspondence Regarding Sex-Reassignment (1976-1990). Of particular interest is the correspondence with the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic. The other material in
this series provides good documentation of the state of FTM sex-reassignment in the 1980s, as well as Sullivan's personal
quest to achieve his anatomical sex of choice.

FTM Correspondence (1979-1990) [RESTRICTED]. Sullivan apparantly came in contact with many of the early correspondents (c. 1979-1981) through his work at the Janus Information
Facility. Although in some instances a personal relationship developed through the correspondence, most of the exchanges were
rather business-like. Still, the documents offer revealing glimpses of FTM lives across the United States and Canada. Most
of the later correspondence is related to Sullivan's association with FTM, the peer-support group he founded in 1986. Consult
GLHS Archivist for access.

General Correspondence, (1973-1991). The series is arranged alphabetically by correspondent's last name, with two exceptions which are arranged according to subject
matter, and follow the alphabetically arranged material in the physical organization of the papers. One is a folder of responses
and replies to personal ads Sullivan placed in
Coming Up! in 1984-85; the other is correspondence with various medical/psychotherapeutic professionals Sullivan met while attending
the annual Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Symposia, 1986-1989. For a description of Sullivan's principal correspondents,
see Appendix A.

Information for the Female-to-Male Transsexual and Cross-Dresser (1980-1990). Copies of all three editions of Sullivan's path-breaking guide for females who chose to live as men. Some manuscript notes
and revisions of first edition.

From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland (1984-1990). Various drafts of the manuscript, working notes, some research material, graphic images, publisher's correspondence, publicity
material, reviews, and advertisements.

Short Published Works (1973-1990). The series contains copies of Sullivan's early articles and reviews in GPU News,
Metamorphosis, and other gay or transsexual publications. Manuscript drafts, notes, and related correspondence exist for some of the published
works. One particularly rich folder pertains to Sullivan's negative review of Leslie Lothstein's
Female-to-Male Transsexualism, the first major clinical investigation of the topic. The series also contains material related to a preliminary article on
Jack Garland written by Sullivan for the
San Joachin Historian, a local history newsletter; the article is notable for its straight-forward presentation of minority sexuality in a publication
not oriented toward the homosexual or transgender communities. Other material in the series relates to "Sullivan's Travels,"
an autobiographical article published in
The Advocate, and to "Passing Fancy II," an article on the history of cross-dressing written for the same publication. For a bibliography
of Sullivan's publications, see Appendix B.

Activities and Interests (1979-1990). This record group contains documents related to Sullivan's participation in various groups and organizations, ranging in seriousness
from the Jack and Jill sex parties to the ACLU Transsexual Rights Commission. It includes records of his association with
the Small Club--a group for men who consider themselves to have small penises--and C.I.P. (Cruising Impaired Persons); participation
in both groups is indicative of how Sullivan successfully dealt with issues of his physical differences from other gay men.
The series contains minutes of the GLHS Archives Committee and copies of the GLHS newsletter which Sullivan helped edit and
publish. Three folders of material relate to Sullivan's FTM peer-support group. One contains flyers announcing FTM Get-togethers
and other social events; another contains correspondence and membership questionnaires concerning a medical study of the effects
of testosterone on the cardiovascular health of FTMs; a third contains material related to the club's video library. The richest
material in this series pertains to Golden Gate Girls/Guys, the transgender organization in which Sullivan participated, c.
1979-1981; it includes membership surveys, TV/TS networking directories, transgender resource guides, officers' correspondence,
orientation materials, bylaws, and some business papers. Issues of Gateways, the GGG/G newsletter, have been removed to the
GLHS periodicals collection.

Clippings Files, (1886-1991). Sullivan kept clippings files on a variety of topics, arranged by subject in rough chronological order. The series contains
clippings of FTM cross-dressers and "passing women" from the late 19th century through 1990. Other files, drawn largely from
sources in the 1980s, pertain to graphic images of FTMs, male-to-female cross-dressing and transsexuality, and miscellaneous
material about gender and sexuality.

Books, Pamphlets, and Articles (1755-1989). Sullivan collected a wide range of published works on gender dysphoria, transsexuality, cross-dressing, and genital reconstruction
surgery. The material contained in this series constitutes a relatively complete collection of the major academic and scientific
works on these topics through 1990, as well as several rare biographies of female-to-male cross-dressers. A few folders contain
correspondence and other materials related the published work. For a bibliography of published works contained in the Sullivan
Collection, see Appendix C.

Several books and periodicals have been removed from the Sullivan's papers to other collections in the Archives of the Gay
and Lesbian Historical Society; consult Appendices D and E for futher information about these works.

Miscellaneous Gender-Related Material (1980-1990). Included in this series are flyers and other ephemera, transcripts of television talk shows about transsexuality, testosterone
package inserts, the Benjamin Standards of Care, a subject file pertaining to Les Nichols and Annie Sprinkle, the script for
a movie about gender ambiguity for which Sullivan was a reader, and other difficult-to-classify materials.

Bibliographies and Indexes (1967-1986). Print-outs of exhaustive on-line bibliographic database subject searches on transgender-related topics through 1986. Sullivan
also indexed many of the clippings and articles in his research files.

Audio Tapes (1988-1990). Recordings of radio programs on transsexuality and cross-dressing, interview with Lou Sullivan about his biography of Jack
Garland, recordings of presentations at FTM Get-Togethers and ETVC meetings. For a list of tapes, see Appendix F.

Video Tapes (1935-1990). Most of the twenty video tapes in this series are recordings of televison talk shows that treat the topics of transsexuality
and cross-dressing. Some of the video tapes are theatrical motion pictures that treat the topics of transsexuality and cross-dressing,
or in which female actors play male roles. For a list of titles, see Appendix G.

Computer-Readable Documents. Currently unusable, due to an inability to locate the software in which they were written. Most of the disks merely contain
back-up files for the Jack B. Garland biography and for transcripts of Sullivan's diaries, but there is some evidence that
the computer files also contain correspondence for which no hard copy exists. Hopefully, this information can be retrieved
before it deteriorates.

----------, and Bahr Weiss. "Peers' Granting of Control of Women With Different Sex Role Identities: Implications for Depression."
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 5 (November, 1986). Pp. 1075-1080.

Faderman, Lillian. "Transvestism: Persecution and Impunity." Chapter 4, pp. 47-61, in
Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: William Morrow, 1981.